A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

the alley below. 'I know,' he said to Pearl. That observation had unnerved him as well. One of Tayschrenn's Korvalahrai could level a city if it so chose.
    'They accept my challenge,' Pearl said, facing Quick Ben again. 'Should I pity them?'
    'No,' he answered. 'Just kill them and be done with it.'
    'Then I return to Master Tayschrenn.'
    'Yes.'
    'What is your name, Wizard?'
    He hesitated, then said, 'Ben Adaephon Delat.'
    'You are supposed to be dead,' Pearl said. 'Your name is so marked on the scrolls of those High Mages who fell to the Empire in Seven Cities.'
    Quick Ben glanced up. 'Others are coming, Pearl. You are in for a fight.'
    The demon lifted its gaze. Above them glowing figures descended, five in the first wave, one in the second. This last one radiated such power that Quick Ben shrank back, his blood chilled. The figure had something long and narrow strapped to its back.
    'Ben Adaephon Delat,' Pearl said plaintively, 'see the last who comes. You send me to my death.'
    'I know,' Quick Ben whispered.
    'Flee, then. I will hold them enough to ensure your escape, no more.'
    Quick Ben sank down past the roof.
    Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. 'Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?'
    'Yes,' he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.
     
    Rallick walked down the centre of the street. On either side of the wide corridor rose columns from which gas torches jutted, casting circles of blue light on to the wet cobblestones. The light rain had returned, coating everything in a slick sheen. To his right and beyond the resident houses lining that side of the street, the pale domes of the High Thalanti on the hill glistened against the deep grey sky.
    The temple was among the oldest structures in the city, its founding blocks over two thousand years old. The Thalanti monks had come, like so many others, carried on the wings of the rumour. Rallick knew less about the story than did Murillio and Coll. One of the Elder Peoples was believed to have been entombed among the hills, an individual of great wealth and power, that was the extent of his knowledge.
    But it had been a rumour with many consequences. If not for the thousands of shafts sunk into the earth the caverns of gas would never have been found. And while many of those shafts had collapsed or had been forgotten over the centuries, still others remained, now connected by tunnels.
    In one of the many chambers that honeycombed the ground beneath the temple waited Vorcan, Master of Assassins. Rallick imagined Ocelot making his descent, burdened with the news of disaster, and it brought a smile to his lean face. He'd never met Vorcan, but Ocelot suited those catacombs – just another of the city's rats rushing about beneath his feet.
    One day, Rallick knew, he'd become a Clan Leader, he'd meet Vorcan face to face somewhere below. He wondered at how it would change him, and travelling down this path soured his thoughts with displeasure.
    He had no option. Once, he thought, as he approached the block of the Phoenix Inn, long ago, there'd been choices he could have made that would have sent him on a different path. But those days were dead, and the future held only nights, a stretch of darkness that led down to the eternal dark. He would meet Vorcan, eventually, and he'd swear his life to the Guild Master, and that would be that, the closing of the final door.
    And his sense of outrage at the injustices around him, the corruptions of the world, would wither in the unlit tunnels beneath Darujhistan. In the exactness of the methods of assassination, his final victim would be himself.
    And this, more than anything, made his and Murillio's scheme the last act of humanity he'd ever make. Betrayal was the greatest of all crimes in Rallick's mind, for it took all that was human within a person and made it a thing of pain. In the face of that, murder itself was surcease: it was quick, and it ended the anguish and despair of a life without hope. If all went as planned, Lady Simtal and those men who'd conspired with her in the betrayal of her husband, Lord Coll, would die. Could that right the wrong, could it even the scales of retribution? No, but it might return to a man his life and his hope.
    For himself, Rallick, such gifts had long since been lost, and he was not the kind of man to stir the ashes. No embers survived, no flame could be born anew. Life belonged to other people, and his only claim to it was his power to take it from them. Nor